The first sentence really is what the GOP needs to start worrying about first.

The REPs have inadvertently made it a much closer call in recent years though. Problem is, instead of pushing to gain the center, the DEMs pander to the far-left with Daschle and Pelosi.

Well, we seem to have a consensus here that the conservative movement needs to reinvigorate and reassert itself. Who wants to lead this charge?

You may not like Daschle and Pelosi, but if you think that they have led their respective caucuses to the far left, you must be a subscriber to the Washington Times. Although you constantly complaining about Daschle -- why, I can't tell, except for the asbestos thing -- the fact that he comes out of a conservative state makes him relatively moderate in what he does. He was less aggressive, for example, in opposing the energy bill because he had to support the ethanol subsidies in light of his upcoming race against Thune. Pelosi is a lefty, but what do you expect from majority/minority leader?

I'm not sure if you read the long paper Bilmore posted 6 or 8 weeks ago, but this is exactly the distinction that Bush is intentionally making. This isn't your daddy's cold war, and its not grandpa's WWII. Bush can't hold his DoD subordinates accountable to save his life, but he does have that vision thing down. If he could do both, we'd be better off. But Kerry is a no-show on the vision thing, and, at best, a "maybe" on leaving tactical decisions up to the Generals.

First, Bush has the wrong vision to fight a war against Al Qaeda. He places too much emphasis on state sponsors of terror, and too little on the many ways in which movements like Al Qaeda can operate free of state sponsors, e.g. in failed states. This focus led him to Iraq, which is more of a problem for us in the war on terror now than it was before. (Not so if we can stabilize it and turn it into a beacon for the region -- I'm not holding my breath.) At the same time, we're not doing much of anything to address the greivances that animate Al Qaeda.

Second, in so casually dismissing Kerry, you're just not being serious. He's surrounded by people like Holbrooke, Biden and Berger (before the sock debacle) who worry about this war and have views about what to do. None of these people think they're fighting the Cold War. And I don't even understand your barb about leaving tactical decisions to the generals. WTF?

The war on terror is not limited to AQ. The DEMs have, rather successfully, made the argument that going to Iraq hindered the war against AQ, but that is the wrong formulation. The war on terror is against Islamic Facism, and going to Iraq is a long term play to combat this. I don't know how else we can combat the war against Islamic Facism then by giving those who would join it an alternative, and I can't think of a better alternative than freedom and prosperty.

Of course there are no guaranties, but the road to freedom, once started, is a very powerful force. My guess is that 5-10 years from now it will have taken hold and offer the alternative.

What is Kerry's alternative? I understand he back retribution against AG, but what is his long term strategy for combating Islamic Facism?

Wrong and wrong. Bush will go after failed states as surely as he'll go after state-sponsors. The difference is, it barely registers when our special forces operate in failed states. I should note that the operations of our special forces in failed states is something that I think you've at least guessed is occuring. Addressing the grievances that animate Al Queda? That is dangerously close to being an apologist for them. Their grievances are that they lost in societal evolution and we won. They hate our sucess.

I am being serious about Kerry too. At the end of the day, I don't care who surrounds a leader if the leader doesn't have the vision thing down. Reagan was a perfect example of the right vision with the right cabinet (in most areas). Bush is a perfect example of the right vision with a few arrogant and meddling assholes in the cabinet. The tactical thing is apropos, because it addresses Bush's big problem (in my eyes) militarily, which is that the Pentagon civilians meddle in tactical affairs at an alarming rate and with disastrous results. Why would I bring this up wrt Kerry? Well, this arrogance and meddling are a legacy of McNamara and, more recently, Aspen. Its just another example of bad habits that our leader has picked up from Democratic administrations. In any case, it has proved to the be wrong thing to do uniformly over the last 50 years. Once you send the Marines or Army in, give them what they say they need, and tell them to call if they need anything else or when they've annihilated the enemy. The thing is, Kerry is, at best, an unknown in this regard.

Who do you think would be likely candidates for Secretary of Defense in a Kerry administration and what have they stated previously on this topic (its a topic that has been widely commented on)?

Hello

No Moral Case Against the War
 

http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog...st_word_o.html

Anyone care to rebut this?

Is this the October Surprise?
 

Powerline is reporting:


http://powerlineblog.com/archives/008276.php

How would you suggest we do this? What has JFK proposed to do?

as I recall, AQ 3 main ones articulated around 9/2001-

1] We support Israel.
now AQ was blowing us up during Clinton times, so this would be a problem even if, as you may suggest, Bush hadn't moved towards Israel more. But, at least as a promise Israel is moving out of the territories, so perhaps 5 years from now there will be 2 states.
I think we will still be seen as supporting Israel in AQ's eyes, and Israelis will still be getting blown up periodically. That is, maybe this one will shrink, but it ain't going away.

and JFK would do...?

2] We had troops on the arabian Penisula.
We at least are closing bases in SA, but moving them to smaller local countries. Of course, we moved many many more troops into the area. I'm not sure if Afghanistan is part of the Penisula, but I'd guess even if not, out troops there make a whole new grievence. So on this one, unless AQ was really just worried about SA, we probably are worse.

JFK would have.....? You can't say he wouldn't have sent troops to Afghanistan, because he's been saying we should send more. He isn't saying we shouldn't have gone to Iraq, he's saying we should have talked theFrench/Germans into going with us.

3]The UN sanctions are killing Iraqui babies
we did solve this one, though I'm pretty sure they'd want to update the grievance. But, if we can get a functioning country in place, we will have eliminated this one. Of course that will take time.

All of the grievances will take time to address to the extent we should address them. The thing that I keep going back to is that super high percentages of SA and Egypt citizens (these are the polls I remember) hated us before 9/11 and then thought we did 9/11 as an excuse to go grab oil. This is the only "grievance" I'm truly concerned about, and I don't see how status quo foreign policy would do anything.

People often are elated to receive gifts at the barrel of the gun.

I'm not sure that you have accurately captured the universe, but here goes.

Maybe not what Bush did. Which was take office and immediately say, "Ya know, I think we'll just pull back from that little problem 'cause its too hard for us."

This is only part of the larger complaint about the state of the Saudi government. But I haven't seen the Bush administration trying to create any of the freedom that you advocate for Iraq in Saudi Arabia. It ain't gonna make Osama happy, but legal and non-violent outlets for dissent surely can't hurt to lessen the number of violent extremists out there.

Umm... you have never seen a map? Regardless, I don't think Afghanistan has sufficient holiness to make our mere presence as big of an issue.

But yes, you have a point that they will be pissed off about wherever we invade and occupy.

Ty, this Shit Works Both Ways
 

Uh huh.

I was about to respond with an observation re: Fallujah (would Administration intervention in the attack on the city be a "brass" problem?), but then I realized that your nifty conceit manages to exculpate the Bush Administration for almost everything that's happened after March 2003.

We can continue to float in the ether, exclaiming about the inherent thirst of all peoples to be free, and Saddam's evils, and relegate the multitudes of fuckups since we crossed the border to the Pentagon! We'll pretend that the buck stops with, say, Rumsfeld, who obviously has been seriously reprimanded by Bush, that tough personnel taskmaster, and who we fully expect Bush to let go by 2008 or so.

Brilliant, I tell you! Genius, I say!

No Moral Case Against the War
 

Rebut what? That Saddam Hussein was a bad, bad, man?

No. I agree with that.

If this what you think we've all been arguing about for the last couple of years now, it's profoundly disappointing, but it would explain much.

Handy tip: you may want to give this line to club to repeat instead of you, because having you say this is something like farting in public.

People may just let it go without further comment, but let's not pretend that anyone thinks it smells of roses.

(Hat trick!)

Handy tip: Sarcasm meter for anything like this coming from me. I don't, except for last week and this, take shrill insults with a smile. I'm just not built to stand there and smile, though I've learned to just put someone on ignore and move on if it keeps up for more than 1 or 2 posts sequentially. Got that motherf, er, talk to you November 3 buddy!